the denver debate now in the rear-view mirror, presidential obama and republican presidential hopeful mitt romney hit the campaign trail in battleground states. >> how did dad do last night? . >> mitt romney made a surprise stop at the colorado conservative political action committee. the crowd and the candidate were clearly energized from what is widely viewed as a major debate victory. >> i know this is going to be a close-fought battle. we need to win colorado. if we do, you know what? we're going to take back the white house. >> the campaign stopped elsewhere in denver. the president took aim at some of romney's debate claims. >> when i got on to the stage i met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be mitt romney [ laughter ] but it -- but it couldn't have been mitt romney because the real mitt romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion dlrs in tax cuts to pay for the wealthy. i said didn't know anything about that. >> with election day less than five weeks away it remains to be seen if the debate was a success. both men have scheduled s